Remember when The Outer Worlds was supposed to be Obsidian's answer to Bethesda's bloated RPGs? The scrappy underdog that proved you didn't need a hundred planets of procedurally generated nothing to make a great space game?

Yeah, about that sequel.

The Outer Worlds 2 has sold less than 1 million copies across all platforms in its first three months. For context, the original game moved approximately 2 million units in the same timeframe. That's a 50 percent sales drop, and in the games industry, those numbers are catastrophic.

Let's put this in perspective: Starfield, the game everyone loved to dunk on for being boring and empty, sold over 10 million copies. Even with its problems, Bethesda's space RPG was a commercial success. The Outer Worlds 2 can't even crack a million.

So what went wrong?

Game Pass cannibalization is the obvious suspect. The game launched day-one on Microsoft's subscription service, which means millions of players had zero incentive to buy it. Why pay $70 when you can play it for the price of your existing subscription? Microsoft owns Obsidian, so this was inevitable - but it's killing sales data and making it nearly impossible to gauge actual player interest.

But there's a bigger problem: maybe the game just isn't good enough. The first Outer Worlds had charm and wit, but it was also kind of shallow. Limited build diversity, small maps, not much endgame content. If the sequel didn't dramatically improve on those weaknesses, why would fans rush out to play it?

The timing didn't help either. The Outer Worlds 2 launched into a packed season with heavy hitters competing for attention. And let's be real - Obsidian's reputation has been coasting on Fallout: New Vegas nostalgia for over a decade. At some point, you have to deliver something new that matches that legacy.

The marketing was also weirdly quiet. No massive preview cycle, no big influencer push, just a launch and... crickets. Either Microsoft didn't believe in it, or they'd already accepted it was Game Pass fodder and didn't bother trying to drive sales.